Housal Maintenance

I know, I know. Everyone says how much money you can save when you buy a 20 gallon tub of Mayonnaise over the cute little compact that fits conveniently in your fridge door. Well, guess what! I don't have a root cellar, extra refrigerator, extra freezer, pantry, or even adequate space in my cupboards to store 50 lbs of pretzels! I just don't! I live in an apartment, dang it! However...there is a happy medium between investing stock in Costco and shopping the single's aisle at the grocery store. You just have to learn how to pick your battles and exploit your storage. As I was browning 12 lbs of ground beef, I started thinking of different things I'm doing now that have really helped my family eat better for cheaper.

Rule 1: Clean out your fridge EVERY week. I don't care if you think there's only a bottle of ketchup and a lonely jar of half empty grape jelly in your fridge. Get on your knees and rearrange them. Check the deli and fruit drawers. The cave where your butter likes to hide. Check the expiration date on your eggs. Just get down there and go through it. You'll be amazed at what you forgot you had. And what you should use before it expires in a day or two. I usually pick Mondays to go through my fridge. It kind of gives me a start on the meal planning for that week.

Rule 2: Shelves are your best friend. Make sure that your shelving in your cupboards is adequate for what you need without having too much space. You need enough space to get behind certain items, but any more than what you need is just wasted space. Just think if you could add another shelf right there above your spices. Why, you could buy all those cans of Spam on sale and just store them there! Another word about shelving. I just put shelves in my laundry "room" above my dryer (and when I say I put the shelves in, I meant I told my boyfriend where to put them and hovered over him until he was done. He sure did a great job!). Then I took my crockpot which was stored below my sink (along with all my cleaning chemicals, I know, yikes!) and put it on the shelf along with all my other appliances that I don't use every day, i.e. the microwave is still on the counter. Now I'm free to buy that 20 lb bag of rice! Yay! Basically, check out your dead space and get creative in storage solutions. Dare I say, it's actually kinda fun!

Rule 3: Buy meat -ONLY- and may I repeat -ONLY- when it is a really good sale. Guess what. Meat freezes. Every single piece of meat freezes. It freezes raw, it freezes baked, it freezes fried, it freezes shaped. Yes, I went for the gold and I rhymed. But really. Buy meat on sale. Freeze. Take out when needed. Now, after saying this, if you're at all like me, there are some nights where you're just too tired to make a big dinner, you forgot to take the meat out of the freezer to thaw last night, or something comes up and you weren't able to make dinner when you planned. This happens. I believe the term is called "Life". That's why I never just take the meat that I buy and throw it in the freezer just as it is. I prepare. For example: Yesterday I went to Safeway and found some of their family sized bulk ground beef half off. Yippee! So I bought 12 lbs. Yes, it is the "about to expire" meat. But guess what, that meat also freezes the same as "fresh and still steaming off the cow" meat. So last night, I opened one of them, took about a lb out to make dinner and didn't mess with it until today (I'm lazy, btw. Did I mention that?). Today, I took 2 of the packages (8 lbs) and browned it. Then I strained it. Just a random thought here-in my opinion, I think bulk cooking ground beef is healthier too because to drain the fat off, it's just easier to use a colander and much easier to press down and strain when there's more mass. The fat that came off was just absolutely disgusting. I would take a picture so you can get grossed out also but alas, my camera is dead. You'll just have to imagine. Anyway, I took a measuring cup and measured 2 1/2 cups (or 1 lb) of meat and placed it in a ziplock bag. Lay the bag down, seal it while pressing most of the air out, smooth out the meat so it fills the four corners of the bag (easier for stacking) and place in the freezer. I got 6 bags of ground beef. I know, 6 lbs isn't the 8 I started with. That's how much fat I took off. Once again, ick! Then I took the last package and shaped the meat into circles for hamburgers. For this, I used a bit of beforehand prep. Take a cutting board and put a piece of saran wrap on it. Then cut off a few more pieces of saran wrap for later. The first time I tried to prep ahead with the saran wrap, they stuck together and I got angry and cursed Mr. Saran for all eternity. This time, when I tore a piece off, I just stick it to my cupboard door. It doesn't need to be permanent or anything just enough that you can grab it easily. So, place two patties of circular ground cow on the saran wrap about an inch apart. Put a layer of saran wrap over it. Rinse, repeat. Actually, don't rinse. Just repeat. When you're done, take a knife and cut between the two patties. Then take 2 more pieces of saran wrap and wrap the 2 patty towers separately. They are now ready for the deep freeze. See? Piece of cake. You can even microwave them for a really quick meal. So this really saves on time and money. For 6 lbs of ground beef, and 12 hamburger patties (plus one hamburger helper meal from last night and one meal from today) I paid about 15 dollars. Can't hardly beat that. For chicken, sometimes I freeze it raw just because it's so easy to throw it in a pot of boiling water. When I get an incredible deal on chicken breasts (and that's about the only chicken I buy) I like to take it, cut it in chunks, egg it, bread it, throw it in a frying pan and just fry it up before I freeze it. Guess what! You can make so many meals with that! One of my favorites is honey barbecue boneless wings. I got completely addicted to the ones at KFC but they are SO expensive. Well, now I can make them myself faster than I can drive to KFC to pick them up. Or you can just have chicken nuggets for the kids. Or sweet and sour chicken. Or...well, gosh anything. All you have to do is turn the oven on and throw them in until they're hot and get the sauce to go with them. They're already cooked. And think how much cheaper it is than buying the bags on Tyson chicken at the supermarket. So yeah. I plan my meals around the meat sales and freeze extra. Wow, rule three is long.

Rule 4: Get rid of your waffle maker. Now, I have nothing personal against your waffle maker. I like waffles, honest, I do. And I'm really just making an example of the waffle maker, not target it as an evil kitchen appliance. But if you don't have the space for the waffle maker (or juicer or apple press or whatever it is you only use once a year) then get rid of it. Unless you're making waffles every week, what's the sense in having it? I try to keep my kitchen down to the bare essentials. And if in a week or two, when the berries are at their peak and you want to make some yummy jam without seeds and you need your seed strainer that you just tossed out, instead of cursing my name, call your grandma or someone else you know who cans and ask if you could kindly borrow theirs for a day in exchange for a jar of your special homemade jelly. Just a side note on this one-as I'm typing this, my eye keeps wandering guiltily back to my appliances above my dryer where I have not one, but (gasp!) TWO(!!!!) popcorn poppers. See? Certain exceptions apply to everyone! One is a Stir Crazy, which I love because it has the potential to make movie theater tasting popcorn and the other is my Air Popper which I love because it makes for a quick healthy snack when I'm trying to weight manage.
Rule 5: Make your kitchen flow. Answer this question: What is the room in the house with the highest amount of things going in and things going out? If your family is like my family, it's the kitchen. Because of that, it's highly important for me to be able to do what I want to do as quickly and easily as I can. I'm a single mom. I am not going to prepare a 5 course meal for my kids. One pot cooking sounds just super to me. So when I go into my kitchen, I want to find what I need when I need it. I don't want to look behind the carton of grits to find the oatmeal. I don't even like grits! Why are they in my cupboard? Get rid of the foods that you don't like. Store the ones out of the kitchen that you don't use often. Put the ones you use all the time out front and in easy to open containers. Don't just leave the flour in the bag. That's how it spills. Get a clear plastic bin with a wide mouth and a pop top. When that gets low, go into your storage space with the bulk foods and refill it. It will seriously save you on stress.
Rule 6: This isn't really a rule, but a good idea that I do especially now that school is starting. Whenever I find a good deal on fruit snacks, small package of rice krispie treats, mini oreos, granola bars, etc., I buy them. The other day, I got fruit snacks and granola bars for 17c per box. I now have a big plastic tub where all these snack items go. Open the boxes and throw them in. Yes, it's a little disorganized but it's all snack foods that my kids love and it makes lunches on the go easy and saves on space. Those cardboard boxes really have a lot of extra room in them. Oh yeah, and as an added bonus to me, my 4 year old daughter who likes to graze cannot open the sterilite clear plastic bins by herself.

So I hope this helped a little. Like I said, it was just something I was thinking about as I'm watching 2 lbs of fat separate from 6 lbs of meat (it was a little traumatic). And if I think of more, I'll post it later.